Issue Archive

Applications include clinical cytogenetics, biomedical research, and biodosimetry.
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
Chromosomal inversions, such as those occurring following exposure to ionizing radiation, are especially difficult to detect by current techniques. Therefore, their true frequency and importance have been underappreciated. Even the impressive technology of whole genome sequencing, which is becoming more readily and rapidly available, is useless for the detection of many chromosomal rearrangements within a chromosome. Likewise, stateof- the-art cytogenetic mBAND analysis of irradiated normal human tissue can only occasionally reveal radiationinduced inversions. A novel and innovative approach called differential Genomic Hybridization (dGH) or chromatid painting has been developed to further explore, expand, and capitalize on this new frontier of molecular cytogenetics.

Emergency relief organizations, food banks, the military, and food service markets all have use for the bars due to their nutritional offering and long shelf life.
Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
To decrease the mass of the space food system and still maintain the nutritional intake of a mission crew, meal replacement bars and beverages are desired to supplement the menu and serve as meal alternatives. Nutritional requirements for such replacement products for breakfast and lunch have been established based on the current nutritional delivery of the International Space Station standard menu.

Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
A complex organization with many tasks and sub-tasks, many phases, and many workers often will have an associated database with many users and groups, each of whom has a limited “need to know” (e.g. fine-grained security access controls) that does not extend to all information in the database. A group of users having access to information in a particular portion of the database may need to edit one or more documents to restate the original information more conveniently or accurately.

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
This tool supports the development of table loads required to inform the flight software of new on-the-fly packet definitions. The main outcome of the processing includes all the database products needed by the ground system to process the newly created packets. The tool ingests the latest telemetry definition from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) central database repository, and updates those definitions as required to support the dynamic packet definitions determined by the user of the tool. These updated telemetry definitions are in a form that can be directly sent to the JWST central database repository for inclusion in a new database version. The tool allows for the inclusion in the new packet definitions of any ISIM Flight Software (FSW) data types.

Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
This hardware-independent, Web-based service provides the capabilities to improve software assurance by streamlining the management of the analysis tools, the code being analyzed, and the results that are generated. The service is a GUI (graphical user interface) application that addresses the needs of software developers and supporting analysts by presenting a single interface from which multiple static code analysis tools can be configured and executed. It also provides the means to automate consistent periodic analysis of each release of code, has the capability to track code change and identified issues in the code through progressive build releases, and provides tools for identifying and rejecting false-positives from results while identifying quickly what the real issues are within the source code.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
Previously, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) did not allow observations to go beyond the end of a planning period. However, opportunities for observing the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover occur close enough to these boundaries to require the observations that support the rover to cross these boundaries. This requires the observation to be included in two planning cycles.

Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
The Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) Ground Support System (IGSS) Equation Processor (IEP) allows for the general production of “derived” telemetry products in the Raytheon Eclipse ground system used to support the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) project. The IEP works alongside the Raytheon-provided equation-processing system but provides for support of string data types that the existing equation processing does not support. The string data type production is required to support the manipulation of JWST string telemetry data types, and for the production of string data types to produce readable time conversions from a binary value to year, day, hour, minute, second format that can be directly viewed on real-time telemetry display pages. The user writes equation scripts using the Tool Command Language (TCL) and specifies as part of the definition how the equation is triggered and what the results should look like. The TCL scripting language provides for a fully featured programming language to manipulate the string data in any form imaginable.

Question of the Week

This week's Question: A recent study created by the Arizona-based Paragon Space Development Corporation says its life support system could help humans survive on Mars. The proposed Environmental Control and Life Support System, the company says,...